[Marxism] a guide to the people poised to shape Obama's foreign policy

[Dbachmozart at aol.com]

This is Change? 20 Hawks, Clintonites and Neocons to Watch for in Obama's  
White House



By _Jeremy  Scahill_ (http://www.alternet.org/authors/5434/) , _AlterNet_ 
(http://www.alternet.org/) . Posted _November  20, 2008_ 
(http://www.alternet.org/ts/archives/?date[F]=11&date[Y]=2008&date[d]=20&act=Go/) .
 
clip -- 
Obama has a momentous opportunity to do what he repeatedly promised over the  
course of his campaign: bring actual change. But the more we learn about who  
Obama is considering for top positions in his administration, the more his 
inner  circle resembles a staff reunion of President Bill Clinton's White House. 
 Although Obama brought some progressives on board early in his campaign, his 
 foreign policy team is now dominated by the hawkish, old-guard Democrats of 
the  1990s. This has been particularly true since Hillary Clinton conceded 
defeat in  the Democratic primary, freeing many of her top advisors to join 
Obama's  team. 
"What happened to all this talk about change?" a member of the Clinton  
foreign policy team recently _asked_ 
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/14/AR2008111403863_pf.html)   the Washington Post. "This isn't 
lightly flavored with Clintons. This  is all Clintons, all the time." 
Amid the euphoria over Obama's election and the end of the Bush era, it is  
critical to recall what 1990s U.S. foreign policy actually looked like. Bill  
Clinton's  boiled down to a one-two punch from the hidden hand of the free  
market, backed up by the iron fist of U.S. militarism. Clinton took office and  
almost immediately bombed Iraq (ostensibly in retaliation for an alleged plot 
by  Saddam Hussein to assassinate former President George H.W. Bush). He 
presided  over a ruthless regime of economic sanctions that killed hundreds of 
thousands  of Iraqis, and under the guise of the so-called No-Fly Zones in northern 
and  southern Iraq, authorized the longest sustained U.S. bombing campaign 
since  Vietnam. 
Under Clinton, Yugoslavia was bombed and dismantled as part of what Noam  
Chomsky described as the "New Military Humanism." Sudan and Afghanistan were  
attacked, Haiti was destabilized and "free trade" deals like the North America  
Free Trade Agreement and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade radically  
escalated the spread of corporate-dominated globalization that hurt U.S. 
workers  and devastated developing countries. Clinton accelerated the 
militarization of  the so-called War on Drugs in Central and Latin America and supported  
privatization of U.S. military operations, giving lucrative contracts to  
Halliburton and other war contractors. Meanwhile, U.S. weapons sales to  countries 
like Turkey and Indonesia aided genocidal campaigns against the Kurds  and the 
East Timorese.
full article --
 
_http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/107666/_ 
(http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/107666/)   



**************One site has it all. Your email accounts, your social networks, 
and the things you love. Try the new AOL.com 
today!(http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100000075x1212962939x1200825291/aol?redir=http://www.aol.com/?optin=new-dp
%26icid=aolcom40vanity%26ncid=emlcntaolcom00000001)